tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24015879Tue, 07 Oct 2014 01:21:09 +0000Israel generalLanguageRPmediaIsraeli politicscorruptionKinneretRunaway BunnySouth Africacricketthe 90th minuteUntil September 2007, when my oldest daughter was born, this blog covered daily life and politics in Israel, as well as Hebrew-English linguistic issues, from the perspective of an American-raised journalist and translator living in Israel. Now it mostly serves as the SmunchMonk&amp;Bear news agency, a portal into the bizarre universe of the little people. Read more at: <a href="http://www.shoshanakordova.com">www.shoshanakordova.com</a>.http://shoshanakordova.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.com (Shoshana Kordova)Blogger200125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24015879.post-4659922750869381584Thu, 17 Oct 2013 14:22:00 +00002013-10-17T17:22:19.231+03:00helping abba in the kitchen<div><br/><img src='http://lh3.ggpht.com/-xAJqZ9k5wps/Ul_yjoQJ-VI/AAAAAAAAAvA/tunHisB58pk/2013-10-17%25252017.21.36.png' /></div>http://shoshanakordova.blogspot.com/2013/10/helping-abba-in-kitchen.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Shoshana Kordova)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24015879.post-5022605817395210266Thu, 10 Oct 2013 12:14:00 +00002013-10-10T15:14:07.640+03:00kl conquers her fears<div><br/><img src='http://lh6.ggpht.com/-hCE3DH__AP4/UlaaCYcC96I/AAAAAAAAAus/A7ThhaZ19Y0/2013-10-10%25252015.10.53.png' /></div>http://shoshanakordova.blogspot.com/2013/10/kl-conquers-her-fears.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Shoshana Kordova)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24015879.post-3193121027216916114Mon, 26 Aug 2013 06:23:00 +00002013-08-26T09:23:42.964+03:00gimmel in a box<div><br/><img src='http://lh3.ggpht.com/-ukiKIvQS8gk/Uhr0ajk-DZI/AAAAAAAAAtY/5smSbR-SEwM/2013-08-26%25252009.18.26.png' /></div>http://shoshanakordova.blogspot.com/2013/08/gimmel-in-box.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Shoshana Kordova)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24015879.post-5438392573483175655Mon, 12 Aug 2013 17:23:00 +00002013-08-12T20:34:39.321+03:00I scary!Some recent Kinneretisms (KL recently turned 4):<br></br> * R&K were complaining about not being able to fall asleep (particularly grievous since they had been trying for a whole five seconds). It started with Rimonit saying that she was thinking (well, she used the word "dreaming" but I had to explain that if she were dreaming she would in fact have been asleep) about robbers and pirates and getting scared. I offered a bunch of going-to-sleep options: they could think about something fun or something that makes them happy, like their birthday parties; they could count (forwards or backwards, in English or Hebrew) or sing a song, like the Alef-Bet (their current fave). I made sure to clarify that if they counted or sang they would have to do it in their heads so as not to keep their sister from sleeping.<br></br> Only problem is, it appears that Kinneret hasn't quite figured out what it means to do something "in your head." I tried to explain that it means thinking the words of the song (etc.) without actually singing it out loud, but clearly she did not quite catch on, at least if I can judge by her repeated insistence that she couldn't do it and therefore <i>I</i> should sing in her head.<br></br> * Toward the end of the school year, the kids in Kinneret's class made a car-shaped Tefillat Haderekh thingamajig that apparently the ganenet said the parents are supposed to hang in their car. Kinneret took this quite seriously and was devastated to find out that the fact that we don't own a car served as a sufficient deterrent to our hanging it in said non-existent car.<br></br> * Someone who wants to eat is hungry, someone who wants to drink is thirsty, and someone who's scared is scary (especially when the dog comes too close). Right?<br></br> * For some reason, I thought that Kinneret's confusion between <i>shalosh</i> (3) and <i>arba </i>(4) would resolve itself once she actually turned arba. I guess I thought it was possible she was convinced she was already arba(before her birthday) because she's one of the youngest kids in her class, so most of the other kids were in fact either arba or <i>hamesh </i>(5). But no. No matter how many times I try to tell or show her (I've tried counting objects with her in English and in Hebrew), she insists that since her fourth birthday (in English only) she has finally found what Ponce de Leon was supposedly looking for, since she has gone from being arba to being shalosh.<br></br> Somewhat relatedly, Kinneret now insists I count to 4 whenever we do something where I count, regardless of whether this is beneficial to her or detrimental. I do the counting thing in part to help them take turns, and the first time she said it, I was willing to count to five for each of them during their turn on the ride thingy in the mall that I never, ever put money into because I would never hear the end of it - but she insisted I count to four. (I started counting in this way with Rimonit when she wanted to stop at every single blade of grass on the way home from gan - I would let her stop at certain places for three seconds each - and now find it really useful for all of them, individually and together. I guess Kinneret and Moriya were born into the system.)<br></br> * [Warning: Repost/elaboration of FB post] During bathtime (I usually put the Big Three into the tub together), Rimonit sometimes likes to spread out a washcloth on the side of the tub and announce that she's screening movies. During one such bath, she asked Kinneret in Hebrew which movie (<i>seret</i>) she wanted to watch, to which Kinneret responded matter-of-factly: '<i>seret hadibrot</i>. <br></br> The explanation that ruins the joke: It's not really Seret Hadibrot, nor is it a seret; it's <i>aseret hadibrot</i> (spelled totally differently), which means the 10 commandments.<br></br> Charlton Heston, meet your youngest fan. http://shoshanakordova.blogspot.com/2013/08/i-scary.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Shoshana Kordova)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24015879.post-5849814031332448835Mon, 12 Aug 2013 14:10:00 +00002013-08-12T17:10:50.661+03:00finally caught heruti smiling<div><br/><img src='http://lh3.ggpht.com/-zHCJeJJBKSw/Ugjs55bTG6I/AAAAAAAAAVI/fj7z3RfWVoI/2013-08-12%25252016.19.39.png' /></div>http://shoshanakordova.blogspot.com/2013/08/finally-caught-heruti-smiling.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Shoshana Kordova)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24015879.post-4094828276230513488Mon, 12 Aug 2013 13:24:00 +00002013-08-12T16:25:03.155+03:00who says purim only comes once a year?<div><br/><img src='http://lh4.ggpht.com/-XvxgWWZAEGc/UgjiGqRVFiI/AAAAAAAAAU0/KXhwW2MXUG8/2013-08-12%25252008.26.57.png' /></div>http://shoshanakordova.blogspot.com/2013/08/who-says-purim-only-comes-once-year.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Shoshana Kordova)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24015879.post-5207157897772155758Mon, 12 Aug 2013 13:23:00 +00002013-08-12T16:24:06.676+03:00there were plenty of empty swings but...<div><br/><img src='http://lh3.ggpht.com/-0i5TI-VT7y8/Ugjh5Kxy_KI/AAAAAAAAAUs/jSYPH83XPjE/2013-08-07%25252016.16.06.png' /></div>http://shoshanakordova.blogspot.com/2013/08/there-were-plenty-of-empty-swings-but.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Shoshana Kordova)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24015879.post-886022346578546314Sun, 04 Aug 2013 17:23:00 +00002013-08-04T20:23:55.128+03:00Some stuffOkay, so I find myself in the position of having little things I want to post here but not actually posting them because I feel like I'm not allowed to write anything until I blogoffically announce the birth of Girl #4, Herut Tifferet, who was born on Hey Iyar (Yom Ha'atzmaut). But then I never get around to giving her the blog post I feel she deserves, so I don't post anything else either. So maybe can we agree that I've just announced her birth and we can move on? I promise to write more about her! <br></br> Oof, now I don't know where to begin. How about by kid. Or by bullet point. Or by as it comes into my head. Or maybe we should just see how it goes... <br></br> * It's been funny hearing the progression of how Moriya (who turned 2 in July) pronounces her own name. Months ago it was Ya, then it gradually progressed to Iya, and now it's Oriya - just one letter away! She continues to (mostly) call Rimonit "Nit" (pron. Neet) and Kinneret "Nenet"; she sometimes expands on those nicknames (I think she's gotten as far as Imonit and Inneret, on occasion), but the truth is I quite like those nicknames and would be happy to have them stay, for a while at least. (Though I wouldn't recommend that anyone other than Oriya try to call No. 1 "Nit" if such a person should wish to be in her good graces.) Those nicknames seem so natural now that Warren had to ask me the other day to remind him what it was that Kinneret used to call Rimonit (answer: Diti). So we used to have a Diti and a Ki (as Rimonit used to call Kinneret) and now we have a Nit and a Nenet. And an Oriya. And, of course, an Uti (pron. Ooti). (Toldja I'd write about her eventually.) <br></br> * In addition to being the word for ponytail and the Hebrew equivalent of "peekaboo," "kookoo" in our house has also come to mean "Thank you." (Moriya's version of Rimonit's "manku.") She's quite good at thanking people, and it's particularly sweet when she adds the person's name to it, as in "kookoo, Nit." Or "kookoo, Ima" - because, yes, she finally stopped calling me Ama! (I just noticed it last week.)<br></br> So much more, but I need to eat dinner. Worse, I need to cook it first. So this will have to do for now....http://shoshanakordova.blogspot.com/2013/08/some-stuff.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Shoshana Kordova)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24015879.post-8102724623381314065Tue, 09 Apr 2013 17:29:00 +00002013-04-10T07:53:46.286+03:00Mens will be mensMy kids have some interesting grammatical quirks. Kinneret gets gender completely mixed up, which may or may not be better than referring to everyone and everything, animate or not, as female (as she had been doing for a while) and may or may not have to do with the confusion engendered by the fact that the word "he" is a masculine pronoun in English but a feminine one in Hebrew. And I recently noticed that both Rimonit and Kinneret consistently use the past continuous tense instead of the simple past (I suspect Kinneret picked this one up from Rimonit, though I can't be sure). So on a good day, someone wored or drawed something, while on a normal day they "were wearing" or "were drawing," regardless of whether simple past would have been the better choice. <br></br> I don't give them grammar lessons, but I have been on a correcting spree on the past tense issue lately. I've been lucky that so far, they generally take my grammatical corrections pretty well and repeat the sentence correctly - even if they do still get it wrong the next 100 times. <br></br> Speaking of time, Kinneret understands "yesterday" to be a generic word for "past," while "tomorrow" is a generic word for "future." And "a different time" could be anything from 5 minutes before to when she was in Ima's tummy, from next Pesach to some indefinite moment in the near or distant future. I feel better about that issue though, because Rimonit used to do the same thing but grew out of it, so I have reason to hope Kinneret will do the same. <br></br> But back to gender pronouns. I took R & K with me to the supermarket today before we picked up M, promising that they could each get a roll and chocolate milk and telling them that they could hold it in the store but couldn't eat it until we paid for it. We were at the last stop - the meat counter - and the girls, who had been quite good throughout, were getting itchy to chow down. I asked for ground chicken and ground beef, and when the man behind the meat counter put one of them in front of me, Kinneret, desperate to get to the cashier, impatiently told me: "She gave it to you already!" (The not-too-subtle subtext was, of course, "Yo Ima, you moron, why are we still standing here?!") <br></br> At this point R saw fit to stand on her big-sister podium and bestow a grammar lesson of her own: "Kinneret," she said in her best didactic voice, "for boys and mens we say '<i>he</i>.' For girls and womens we say '<i>she</i>'!" http://shoshanakordova.blogspot.com/2013/04/mens-will-be-mens.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Shoshana Kordova)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24015879.post-4318452892495645436Sun, 07 Apr 2013 18:55:00 +00002013-04-07T22:55:46.005+03:00Hanging up her tail<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9k-ESJ0nWmw/UWHJdxpcE9I/AAAAAAAAAN8/aev8svd4hYk/s1600/purim2013.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9k-ESJ0nWmw/UWHJdxpcE9I/AAAAAAAAAN8/aev8svd4hYk/s320/purim2013.JPG" /></a><br></br> Big news on the Kinneret front: She has hung up her tiger tail! That's right, after about a year of being a tiger, she has announced (repeatedly) that her roaring days are behind her. <br></br> The turning point came around Purim time. I had shown her the tiger tail and ears and explained that we were going to put black stripes (= tape) on her orange outfit, and she was all excited about it - until the time came to actually wear it to gan for the exciting day when they all go in their costumes. She totally freaked out and didn't want to wear the tiger outfit or go to gan and was just a total wreck who repeatedly said she would rather stay home. Since it was a Friday, we let her; it was one of those cases where it was clear that what the ganenot and maybe other parents would think was the right thing to do just did not seem right for our kid. Even I couldn't help feeling like she should go to gan and have fun (I even offered an hour or two later to take her in, making sure she realized what she would be missing - but no go) but it would have meant forcing her in to do things she probably wouldn't have cared about anyway. <br></br> (If it were Rimonit, though, I definitely would have made her go because I know she was really looking forward to dressing up in gan and seeing what all the other kids were wearing and that she would be upset about not going even if she had a tantrum or something and claimed not to want to go. In fact, Rimonit couldn't understand why Kinneret wouldn't want to go and kept asking her about it, but Kinneret seemed quite happy with her decision.)<br></br> Anyway, after that Kinneret just didn't want to be a tiger anymore. She didn't even wear her tiger costume for more than the five or ten minutes between when she was ready to go to gan and when we gave in to her tears and let her stay home. She was a bee instead (fortunately, I had picked up a bee costume at Target when we were in the States around Halloween time, so we were good to go), and since relegating tiger-hood to her past (she does still sleep with a tiger figurine and enjoy her plethora of tiger books, though, so she hasn't completely renounced her feline friend) has alternately taken on the identity of a bee and of Eliyahu Hanavi - who, in case you were wondering, likes to hide under Kinneret's yellow blanket, ghostlike.http://shoshanakordova.blogspot.com/2013/04/hanging-up-her-tail.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Shoshana Kordova)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24015879.post-4773006553487880479Sun, 07 Apr 2013 18:53:00 +00002013-04-07T22:56:57.313+03:00Going in for the kill<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tPIOT3-xrpc/UWHK4gw4KpI/AAAAAAAAAOI/-yw6Dz-a8YI/s1600/rimonit-purim2013.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tPIOT3-xrpc/UWHK4gw4KpI/AAAAAAAAAOI/-yw6Dz-a8YI/s320/rimonit-purim2013.JPG" /></a><br></br> Warren got the girls new sandals over Pesach, and Rimonit is very proud that she has a buckle on hers and knows how to open and close it. Today she reported to me what seemed like every girl she had seen in the past week or so and whether or not they had buckles on their shoes. (Kinneret would interrupt here to say: "They're not shoes, they're sandals!") <br></br> <a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5wL77UiDTvQ/UWHLTTt2EtI/AAAAAAAAAOQ/Atr0dyKZF0k/s1600/rk-shushanpurim2013.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5wL77UiDTvQ/UWHLTTt2EtI/AAAAAAAAAOQ/Atr0dyKZF0k/s320/rk-shushanpurim2013.JPG" /></a><br></br> In addition to quickly figuring out how to buckle her new pink sandals, Rimonit has also shown herself to be extremely good at reading between the lines and picking up exactly on the one detail that you didn't say (maybe because you thought you could leave out of the explanation, just forgot to mention it or didn't even realize it would be seen in a particular way). <br></br> The latter was the case right before she underwent an evaluation for placement for next year (going into first grade or doing a second year of kindergarten, which is not uncommon here and is viewed similarly to doing another year of preschool in the U.S. instead of heading straight into kindergarten), when she started asking me about whether or not she was going to go into first grade next year (I had prepped her for the possibility of staying a second year by telling her that some children go to first grade after kindergarten and some children go to kindergarten for two years). <br></br> I hadn't been sure what, if anything, I should tell her about the evaluation, but since she asked the question right then I tried to say as diplomatically as I could that the evaluator (who she knows from her current kindergarten) would play games with her and ask her questions and help us decide. I thought I was being vague enough but Rimonit immediately went in for the kill, asking: "So if I get the questions right I'll go to first grade and if I get them wrong I'll go to kindergarten again?" <br></br> I was totally floored and really didn't want her to think that. I ended up essentially telling her (and repeated it in various ways over the next few days, so I hope it sunk in) that there were no right and wrong answers because the whole point was to see what was best for Rimonit, so whatever she answered would be a good answer because it was her answer and would therefore help us do what was best for her. <br></br> I hope that was the "right answer" for me to give, and remain kind of horrified yet impressed that she came up with that question in the first place. <br></br> *** <br></br> I have also noticed that very recently Kinneret has been asking some thinking questions that are more along the lines of the sort of thing Rimonit would pick up on, like on the first day of Pesach, it was Kinneret who asked why we said "hamotzi lechem min haaretz" even though the food we were saying a bracha on was matza, not lechem (bread). Must be the influence of Eliyahu Hanavi rubbing off on her. (And if you don't get that, see post above.)http://shoshanakordova.blogspot.com/2013/04/going-in-for-kill.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Shoshana Kordova)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24015879.post-4701764159289022671Sun, 07 Apr 2013 18:48:00 +00002013-04-09T20:50:37.167+03:00Ani backpack!<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oWyq_k_-iIM/UWHLmb2uIQI/AAAAAAAAAOY/7ywvQ53dSaM/s1600/m+k-around+purim+2013.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oWyq_k_-iIM/UWHLmb2uIQI/AAAAAAAAAOY/7ywvQ53dSaM/s320/m+k-around+purim+2013.JPG" /></a> Moriya has been combining words more and more - it's hard to believe how much she's talking. Her latest favorite combo is "Ani [me] backpack!" since she has now decided she needs a backpack just like her sisters have. She even puts it on herself (okay, not exactly the right way, but still) and puts her water bottle in it. <br></br> She knows both "ani" and "me," and is a particular fan of "mummy," which means both "yummy" and "tummy." She is also a momma's girl, if only in the sense that she likes her pajamas ("mommas!") - especially the warm winter ones (no longer in use), since those are easily identifiable. (Though we had to put a shirt on top to keep her from unzipping them in her crib). As for her actual mummy/momma, I'm still "Ama" to her.<br></br> She has also taken to dolls within the last few months. She sometimes tries to feed her doll from her bottle, and this morning I heard her shushing a doll. I guess she must be picking it up from gan, since her sisters haven't been so into dolls recently.<br></br> She has also become more aware of her toileting needs. Though in the long run I know this is likely to make it easier for her to be toilet trained, in the short term it's kind of annoying when she wants to be changed every time she pees or announces a poo half an hour in advance. We have taken to requiring evidence before agreeing to change her, lest we run out of diapers within the day. http://shoshanakordova.blogspot.com/2013/04/ani-backpack.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Shoshana Kordova)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24015879.post-5379808249985774682Tue, 05 Feb 2013 18:14:00 +00002013-02-05T20:16:13.375+02:00Uvoo too!Moriya's vocab is increasing faster than I can keep track, but she surprised me today by taking on "I love you," which sounds like "Uvoo!" when she says it. I only recognized it (at a bit of a delay) because she has repeated it before when someone else says it -- much as she has occasionally repeated after me, in the exact same tone of voice, "Girls!" when I'm trying to get R&K to come hither -- but today it took me a minute to figure out why she was looking up at me expectantly, waiting for a response, after she suddenly said "Uvoo!" <br><br> Yesterday she initiated a more physical show of affection with Kinneret. While M is often the recipient of hugs and regularly sneaks onto my lap to squeeze herself securely into perfect hugging position, yesterday she just reached over and hugged Kinneret on her own. At first Kinneret was kinda like "get offa me!" but as soon as I said "Moriya's giving you a hug, because she loves you!" K got all into it and they started a whole hugfest that, miraculously, didn't even end in tears. For some reason Kinneret decided that they couldn't actually hug each other simultaneously, so M would hug K and then K would hug M and be like "Okay, give me a hug now," which M would do, and they just sat there taking turns hugging each other. Funny girls! http://shoshanakordova.blogspot.com/2013/02/uvoo-too.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Shoshana Kordova)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24015879.post-4489516840643496769Fri, 01 Feb 2013 05:43:00 +00002013-02-01T07:44:07.325+02:00EleventeenThis is how Kinneret has consistently been counting lately: One, two, three, four, five, six, eleventeen.<br><br> Yet when I suggest that perhaps seven might be next, she counts nicely to ten.<br><br> In other news, Moriya has very much picked up on Kinneret's tiger obsession and the two of them love watching the National Geographic tiger DVD that Warren (somewhat oddly) got. Every time a tiger appears on-screen (which, as one would expect, is pretty often), Moriya says "TI-ger!" and then gives a very guttural "ROAR!" Also, every animal other than cats and dogs are TI-ger! according to Moriya.http://shoshanakordova.blogspot.com/2013/02/eleventeen.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Shoshana Kordova)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24015879.post-5950370199726966314Mon, 07 Jan 2013 18:27:00 +00002013-01-07T20:27:44.245+02:00No cigarKinneret, after I tried to explain that it's nicer to say "My nose is running" than "I have snot" (the latter is reinforced by the Hebrew, "Yesh lakh nazelet," which can either mean "You have a cold" or "Ya got snot"): "My snot is running!"http://shoshanakordova.blogspot.com/2013/01/no-cigar.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Shoshana Kordova)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24015879.post-4199172535211118702Sun, 30 Dec 2012 08:34:00 +00002012-12-30T10:58:06.891+02:00Just kvellingEach of my kids has such a glaringly dynamic personality of her own that I sometimes find myself wondering to what extent each family's parenting style actually makes a difference (given a baseline of consistent love, affection and security, of course). But sometimes Rimonit makes comments that show she really seems to have internalized something I've been trying to drill into her (especially when she says it repeatedly at different times, as in these cases), and it's a bit of an ah-hah moment: a signal that maybe my primary purpose in their lives is not just making sure they don't leave the house naked. Here are the two examples that come to mind: </br></br> 1. Many times when I would ask Rimonit to clean up her toys, she would kind of listlessly hang around, saying she needed help (even when I was helping her) and that she doesn't like putting things away. I would tell her, perfectly honestly, that I was cleaning up even though I don't like cleaning either, and that I was doing it anyway just because it needed to get done. For a while it didn't seem to have much effect. But recently she has been more cooperative, and as she's putting things away, she tells me: "Ima, I don't like cleaning things up - but I'm doing it anyway." </br></br> I totally love this, because if for some reason I had given birth to one of those strange creatures who lives for tidying up, the house would presumably be cleaner but what would she learn from it? That she gets praise for doing something she loves to do anyway? On the other hand, the attitude that Rimonit has been expressing has the potential to help her any time she has to tackle one of life's many unappealing tasks, whether it's cleaning or doing homework or paying bills. Because there's always gonna be something you don't like, but (as I still struggle with) sometimes you've just gotta do it anyway.</br></br> 2. I've made an effort to highlight (in what I hope is a non-lecturey way) the importance of, well, effort. And practice, and trying again, because that's the only way you'll (eventually) get there. This is particularly important for Rimonit because she has some speech (and fine motor coordination) issues, including word-finding difficulty, meaning that even if she knows the right word for something it can be hard for her to call it up on demand, a problem intensified by her vocabulary gap in Hebrew engendered by the fact that we speak only English at home. This can, naturally, be frustrating, which can in turn lead to diminished self-esteem and a reduced motivation to even try to succeed. </br></br> And so it is that Pablo, Disney's penguin that hated the cold (a childhood favorite of Warren's), and the little engine that could have become not just storybook characters but also touchstones for talking about how sometimes we don't get it right the first, or second or third, times, but like Pablo, we have to keep finding a way to get it right (or reach a warmer climate, in his case), and how even if we're smaller than the other guys and the mountain is very big and it's so hard to get over the mountain, we, like the little engine, still have to try, telling ourselves that we think we can. I'm not generally a big fan of stories whose main function is to hit you over the head with a moral lesson, but both these stories have enough personality to stand on their own, as well as being quite useful when there is a message you want to bring home anyway. </br></br> As Rimonit's victories have been racking up, we refer less to those stories and more to her personal accomplishments. Last year she became an expert at hopping (both on her right foot and her left one), and still repeats back to me the narrative of her success: "At first it was hard for me to hop on one foot, but I kept practicing and now I so good at it!" ("To be" words, on the other hand, appear more difficult to get the hang of! At least partly because they don't exist as helping verbs in Hebrew.)</br></br> More recently, she has really started to get a grip on how to hold a pencil correctly and has been showing a great deal of enthusiasm for writing her name and learning her letters (all in Hebrew - I had started with identifying English letters last year, but it fizzled out when she started speech therapy and we had to work on speech issues at home as well, and now I'm thinking that the best thing to do is to supplement what she's already doing in gan). As soon as she wakes up in the morning and as soon as she gets home from gan she rushes to her notebook to practice writing her name.</br></br> Not only has there been dramatic improvement but, at least as important, she has told me excitedly: "I so much better at writing my name and at holding [a pencil]! I want to practice more and get even better!" I can only hope that these lessons stay with her, and that she will always be so excited at the prospect of practicing things that are hard for her and so confident that doing so will help her improve. http://shoshanakordova.blogspot.com/2012/12/just-kvelling.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Shoshana Kordova)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24015879.post-1337244314880126353Mon, 24 Dec 2012 07:46:00 +00002012-12-24T09:48:35.305+02:00Moriya's latest tricksSome of Moriya's latest frequently used words: </br></br> "I!" (when anything is being offered, since she sure doesn't want to be left out)</br></br> "Good night!" (to each family member on her way to bed)</br></br> "Draw!" (what she likes doing, especially when she sees her sisters doing same)</br></br> "Ni" (Rimonit)</br></br> "Ne-net" (Kinneret)</br></br> Moriya gets so excited to see her big sisters that she loves to run into their room and wake them up way too early in the morning, forcing me or W to try to run ahead of her and close their door before she gets the chance to barge in. When they do wake up, she is beside herself with joy. She also loves catching that first glimpse of them when we pick them up after gan; one time all she wanted to do was hold Kinneret's hand as soon as she saw her.</br></br> She has also found a new vocation: generous distributor of kisses (which in her case means she makes kissy faces in the direction of the intended recipient). She is very specific in who she targets, but does accede to requests if someone wasn't the lucky one at any given time. Lately I've noticed that when one of her sisters is crying she'll come over and give them kisses! (Unfortunately, they're not always so receptive at that moment, though sometimes it can take them out of their funk.)http://shoshanakordova.blogspot.com/2012/12/moriyas-latest-tricks.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Shoshana Kordova)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24015879.post-7379573987054175763Mon, 24 Dec 2012 07:26:00 +00002012-12-24T09:33:51.211+02:00Kinneret......insists that she is simultaneously "three" (in English) and "<i>arba</i>" (4, in Hebrew). She sees no contradiction in this, though her older sister does, which leads to some of the most ridiculous fights, along the lines of:</br></br> Random questioner to K: ?בת כמה את (How old are you?)</br>K: בת ארבע (Bat arba - I'm 4)</br>R: No, Kinneret, you're three!</br>K: Yes, I three. </br>R: You're not bat arba [=4], you're bat shalosh [=3].</br>K: No! I not shalosh, I three!!!</br></br> Apparently Kinneret is keen to get her Hebrew and English ages matching up shortly, though, since she asks me about once every week or so whether she's four yet - and once she discovers that she has, alas, not yet reached that milestone, she wants to know when the big day will arrive. Oddly enough, she is usually satisfied with the response "On your next birthday you'll be four."</br></br> ***</br></br> Kinneret has clearly internalized the big-girl changes she has made recently (see <a href="http://shoshanakordova.blogspot.co.il/2012/12/some-more-things.html" target="_blank">previous post</a>), or more accurately, is still in the process of fully making, and has since taken to announcing: "A different time I was a baby and I had to sit in the stroller and I had a bottle and a diaper." Sometimes she adds: "And I slept in a crib." </br></br> Yes, Kinneret, a different time. Like last month (for the nighttime bottle and diaper at least). Amazing how fast she can put it all behind her when she wants to.http://shoshanakordova.blogspot.com/2012/12/kinneret.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Shoshana Kordova)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24015879.post-8806361165457031130Tue, 04 Dec 2012 13:18:00 +00002012-12-04T15:27:03.250+02:00Some more thingsCan't believe I almost forgot to mention: Kinneret is about three weeks into going to sleep without a bottle (of water) - and about a week into going to sleep without a diaper! It's been going pretty well, though not entirely without incident. She's very proud not to be sleeping in a diaper anymore.<br><br> I accidentally forgot to tell the babysitter last night, though, and Warren told me Kinneret woke up at night while I was still at work and cried for about an hour, but he couldn't figure out what the problem was. When I got home at around 1 a.m., she came out and told me, very upset, that the babysitter put a diaper on her - even though "I told her I big."<br><br> As for Moriya, she makes fantastic kissy noises when you say the word "kiss" and has been saying a really great "UH-oh!" lately. http://shoshanakordova.blogspot.com/2012/12/some-more-things.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Shoshana Kordova)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24015879.post-1578015680364453104Tue, 04 Dec 2012 10:45:00 +00002012-12-24T09:36:02.358+02:00One of the gang<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tKDBksZm9mo/UL3dvMPx8RI/AAAAAAAAANY/HT6FDHJ9egQ/s1600/2012-12-all%2Bthree.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="300" width="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tKDBksZm9mo/UL3dvMPx8RI/AAAAAAAAANY/HT6FDHJ9egQ/s400/2012-12-all%2Bthree.jpg" /></a></div> A reader of this blog might have thought that Moriya was not doing anything interesting lately, since I haven't been writing about her much recently. But the opposite is actually the case: She is developing so extraordinarily quickly that I just can't begin to keep up.<br><br> She has truly become one of the gang. When Warren hands out the kids' cups for kiddush or havdala, she is often the first to run over and demand hers (shouting "Doosh! Doosh!" for "kiddush"); when we dance to Shalom Aleikhem or Eliyahu Hanavi, she is right there in the circle with her big sisters; and when Warren has wrestling matches on Shabbat afternoon with Rimonit and Kinneret ("Abba, let's fight on Shabbat!" Rimonit has been known to say), Moriya jumps eagerly into the fray.<br><br> And not only does she throw herself into the midst of things, she is also increasingly being viewed as a legitimate playmate by her sisters. While beforehand, Rimonit was a bit more likely than Kinneret to play with Moriya (in a hierarchical kind of way, of course), Kinneret is increasingly forging her own relationship with her little sister. The other day, after Rimonit and Kinneret had a fight while playing, Kinneret turned to the other kid in the house and said: "Moriya, you want to play with me?" Instead of the usual tears and recrimination, Kinneret just moved over to Option B. <br><br> Moriya, who's almost a year and five months, absolutely loves music and dancing, whether with a partner or by herself, stomping those little feet. She chimes in on our shoe-and-sock song and when she sees the girls getting their shoes on in the morning, she often runs over to get hers too and calls out repeatedly, as she did this morning, "Shoes! Shoes!"<br><br> She's been saying quite a lot of words, some of them regularly (like "mine!" and "more!") and some mostly when she hears other people using them, and she seems to understand just about everything we say to her (like when I told her to give back the pen she stole from my desk, and she came over wearing a mischievous grin and handed over the toy she was holding in her other hand before running away, still clutching the pen). Her ganenot are constantly telling me how she participates in activities, like that game where you're supposed to freeze when they stop the music, better than some of the 2-year-olds. Now if only I could get her to stay asleep after I pick her up so she actually gets in her much-needed afternoon nap!http://shoshanakordova.blogspot.com/2012/12/one-of-gang.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Shoshana Kordova)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24015879.post-6653895807660035617Tue, 04 Dec 2012 09:59:00 +00002012-12-30T10:54:16.156+02:00Some Kinneretisms1. Chicken pox has been going around Kinneret's gan, even though most of the kids (including K) have been immunized. I kept her home for a few days because it can still be contagious even though it was extremely mild. If you ask her why she was home, she'll probably tell you it's because she had "chicken spots."<br><br>2. Once upon a time, we bought a container of humus that comes with a layer of whole chickpeas on top, which Rimonit loved and Kinneret hated. Ever since, Kinneret, a life-long humus lover, has eyed every new container of humus suspiciously and before she deigns to agree to have some, she demands: "It has chick peas?" To which I have no choice but to answer that no, the dip whose primary ingredient is crushed chick peas does not in fact have any chick peas in it.<br><br> UPDATE: I forgot to mention that she does the same thing with grape juice. A while back we had bubbly grape juice, which Kinneret emphatically did not like, and now she often holds off on drinking until ascertaining whether her grape juice has bubbles. At least she's not asking whether it has grapes!</br> </br> 3. Kinneret appears to have given up on the idea that, in a class of 35(!!), she will ever be ima shel Shabbat again, and lately seems to think she has a better chance if she aims for abba shel Shabbat. Rimonit, sadly, was quick to burst her bubble, telling her: "Ein davar kazeh!" - there's no such thing. I intervened to tell them that while only boys might be able to be abba shel Shabbat in gan, at home Kinneret can be anything she wants. Rimonit remains dubious. <br><br> 4. Kinneret has been singing "Adon Olam" almost constantly for the last few weeks. It doesn't seem to bother her that she gets nearly every word wrong.http://shoshanakordova.blogspot.com/2012/12/a-couple-of-kinneretisms.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Shoshana Kordova)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24015879.post-8584620820407785397Sat, 01 Dec 2012 18:27:00 +00002012-12-04T12:01:20.814+02:00QuestionsRimonit, after being informed that three of the four kids coming for Friday night dinner were older than her: "How could they be older than me?? I five!" <br><br>***<br><br>And today, after we passed a dog on the way home from shul:<br><br>Kinneret: We don't have a dog. [pause] We have a baby.<br>Me: Moriya's not such a baby anymore. She's been walking for a while now, and once a baby starts walking we can call her a toddler.<br>Rimonit: Everyone in our family walks. [pause] So is everyone in our family a toddler?http://shoshanakordova.blogspot.com/2012/12/questions.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Shoshana Kordova)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24015879.post-8644578267542441232Wed, 31 Oct 2012 18:37:00 +00002012-10-31T20:37:45.773+02:00Keeping in touchRimonit, on her way, with Kinneret, to fly on a plane (conveniently located on our balcony): "Ima, I'll Skype you every Friday from Savta Lea's house."http://shoshanakordova.blogspot.com/2012/10/keeping-in-touch.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Shoshana Kordova)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24015879.post-7882273009954498513Thu, 25 Oct 2012 08:59:00 +00002012-10-25T11:01:59.995+02:00So far, so goodIt's only the first day, but so far this kid-readable list has been a humongous hit with Rimonit:</p> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Zoeran40FKQ/UIj9qlv-5CI/AAAAAAAAAM0/WQhZcVdbVLU/s1600/morning%2Bsign.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="320" width="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Zoeran40FKQ/UIj9qlv-5CI/AAAAAAAAAM0/WQhZcVdbVLU/s320/morning%2Bsign.jpg" /></a></div> The idea is that instead of me nudging her to do the same things every day, she can just look at the list (magneted to the inside of the front door, which in Israel are usually metal) and do it herself. She was so excited about it today! She loved the independence of the list, and raced to perform each task, and then back to the door to find out what the next thing was until she had gone through each item. I had to hold her off from putting on her backpack half an hour before it was time to go (yes, they launch themselves out of bed way too early in the morning!).</p> And when the time did actually come to walk out the door, Rimonit heard me telling Kinneret to put on her backpack and called out: "Don't tell me to put on my backpack! I know already! It's on the list!" and did it on her own.</p> Who knows what will happen when the novelty wears off, but in the meantime there's this:</p> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oOSTev6Fogg/UIj_Q-ZlPhI/AAAAAAAAANA/1vllaXaWxM8/s1600/post-gan%2Bsign.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="320" width="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oOSTev6Fogg/UIj_Q-ZlPhI/AAAAAAAAANA/1vllaXaWxM8/s320/post-gan%2Bsign.jpg" /></a></div> Rimonit has already told me eagerly that when she comes home she's going to follow the post-gan sign. No way of knowing how it will play out, but at least it's a good start. http://shoshanakordova.blogspot.com/2012/10/so-far-so-good.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Shoshana Kordova)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24015879.post-5674176861603391355Sun, 14 Oct 2012 21:38:00 +00002012-10-14T23:40:06.360+02:00I hear that school has fantastic swimming classes1. At an aquarium, after we saw a bunch of fish swimming together.</p> Me: When fish swim together, it's called a school of fish.</p> Rimonit, the next time we saw something similar (about a minute later): I see the fish going to school! </p> 2. That night, bedtime. RP again, demonstrating that while the "school of fish" concept may be a little confusing, she's a master at similes:</p> Rimonit: I'm giving you a kiss as big as the ship we saw [the battleship New Jersey; plants a smooch on my cheek], and a kiss as small as Moriya [gives me a peck].http://shoshanakordova.blogspot.com/2012/10/i-hear-that-school-has-fantastic.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Shoshana Kordova)0